Yeah I know what you mean. I prefer using willpower to some of the other gimmicks but I use them to help get me started. I've used willpower before to shape shift. And although its tedious to keep doing it after doing it more than once its good for practice.

Oh and transformation is awesome, thanks for the post.

Current LD goal(s): Find and chat with Cardia againLink to My DJ: ld4all.com

Been reluctant to make this due to laziness but I really think this can be helpful .
Transformation has always been my specialty. I've been transforming constantly in LD's since my childhood even before I learned to fly. It's time to share some useful techniques!

First, the basics.

Getting Used to Transformation

Since transformation isn't exactly possible in real life, a lot of people have difficulty with it. Flying can at least be associated with swimming whereas transformation and be associated with next to nothing, so those of you who have difficulty getting the real life restrictions out of your dreams will benefit from these exercises.

Beginners: Pretty simple. Look at the sky then look down at yourself. Kind of like looking at your hands in a LD. Expect them to be different when you look back. If you can achieve this then try it again only this time imagine more specific clothing.

Advanced: Find a mirror or if mirrors don't work in your dreams, just look down at yourself. Now try and imagine your clothes changing before your eyes. Practicing your visualization skills in waking life can be helpful for this. The clearer you can imagine it, the easier it will be. Start with color and then move on to changing the actual types of clothing on yourself.

It's probably useful to be able to achieve the advanced exercise for this as it can aid you in things like growing fur, scales, or feathers later on.

Sensation

A lot of transformations involve adding extra limbs. For this, it can be extremely difficult for some people to imagine what that's like, and there's not really much to compare it to. The only thing I can think of is stretching.

Start with your hands. Look at them. It's a RC, right? If you're lucky, you'll already have an extra finger. That's great! Now feel that extra finger and then all your others. Move them. Carefully take in what it's like to have more than five fingers. If you can imagine it, you can recreate it!
If you weren't one of the lucky ones, you'll have to do a bit more work. First you have to get the sensation of stretching or pulling in your head. Take one of your fingers and pull at it. Imagine it getting longer and really focus on the feeling of stretching. After you've been able to stretch the size of your fingers, you can shake them back to normal (or not ) for the next step.
Take the side of your hand and imagine that feeling of stretching and pulling. You don't have to look at it as you do this. You should now have an extra finger! Now carefully feel what it's like to have an extra limb. This is so that you will be able to recreate that feeling after!

For the "lucky ones" that just had to do a double-take, this can be handy for creating other limbs. Unfortunately there's a tendency for limbs that you just made appear and not grow to not have very good sensation. I mean, you'll probably be able to see them, but you won't feel them much. I'd advice you to practice growing them out. Start small and work up.

This is the stepping stone for growing things like tails, wings, etc.

Changing Size:
Getting Small:

Beginners: Find something to stand beside Ex. a chair, desk, etc. I find tables work the best. Now bend down very slowly beside said object. Make sure to watch the object the entire time. Now as your bending down, watch the object get higher and higher even when you've bent down as far as you can go, imagine it getting higher and higher still until you've reached your desired size. Now here's the tricky part. Slowly stand up again. Don't come up too fast as this can jerk you back up into your original height. The object should now be taller than you. Do not expect that it won't be!
Sometimes in the shrinking process, it's helpful to go smaller than intended just incase some of your size returns.

Advanced: Shut your eyes and when you open them again, look up. Expect everything to be taller than you. You can also trying teleporting (if that's not too difficult) and appearing in a location where everything is bigger to get around actually shrinking yourself.

Expert: Simply imagine yourself being compressed.

Getting Big:

Beginners: Like getting smaller, stand next to an object. Something that is preferably bigger than you. For this I find trees work best. Plant your feet firmly into the ground, grab the object and pull yourself up while still keeping your feet on the ground. Imagine the sensation of stretching if you're not already feeling it. Now transfer this sensation in all directions so that your body grows evenly. Now let go of the object when you've reached your desired size.

Advanced: Shut your eyes and when you open them again, look down. You should be taller. Or, once again, teleport to a location where you are bigger than everything.

Expert: Imagine yourself being stretched.

To be able to achieve the Expert techniques in both cases, it's important to focus to the sensation of shrinking or growing so that you'll eventually be able to recreate it without the use of an object.

Creating Extra Limbs

This is essential if you wanna transform into things that have a little more than a human anatomy.

Creating Wings

Now this depends on what kinds of wings you want. I have a preference for bat wings as it's my favorite animal. You will need the skill of being able to induce the stretching feeling discussed earlier and the ability of being able to change you appearance (same thing as changing your clothes) if you need something like feathers. They may happen naturally in the transformation process though.
First, tense your back and really feel your shoulder blades. Now induce the stretching feeling to those areas. Feel the wings forming on your back. Yep, that's really all there is to it.
Now, you may run into the issue of not being able feel your wings after this despite the fact you made them grow. To correct this, imagine that your arms are where your wings are. You have to just move the control from your arms to your wings. Then switch control back to your arms. If you still can't feel your wings, continue to do this until you can... or not if you don't consider sensation a big deal.

If you want your wings to be where your arms are (say you were transforming into a bird or a bat), that's even easier. For birds it'd just be a matter of visualization skills. You would hold your arms out straight and keep your fingers close together. You would then imagine the feathers spreading from your arms and voila! For bats, keeps your arms close to your body and imagine your fingers stretching. Now stretch your arms out and fingers apart but imagine a resistance. This should be the newly formed skin holding everything together. Now enjoy your bat wings.

(will add more examples after)

Alternate Methods to Achieve Transformation

Using the above methods I feel will ultimately lead to the best control. They focus a lot on actually feeling the transformation. That, of course, is what a lot of lucid dreamers strive to experience in transformations. What's it actually like to be such-and-such animal? They are also stepping stones to more unimaginable transformations such as transforming into inanimate objects or even elements (wind, fire, water, etc) because the process practices control and the feeling of the transformation.
These are techniques that may work better for some but may not work on your control and may or may not suffer in sensation.

Cloak yourself: Methods include throwing a blanket on yourself and taking it off to reveal your desired form, teleport into a location where you appear as your desired form, etc. Just find something to cover your body and when you uncover it, you are transformed.

Costume: Find or create a costume of your desired transformation, put it on and you will become the costume. You can also try putting on a magic mask.

Magic/substance: Have something else induce the transformation. This can be anything from a transformation pill or serum, a magic wand, and sorcerer casting a spell on you, or a werewolf or vampire biting you so that you become a werewolf or vampire.

Role exchange/possession: Find a DC with your desired form and switch roles with them. If you cannot do this, go up behind them and walk through them so that you are now controlling their body.

Feel free to suggest more.

Stabilizing

There is a tendency in dreams for things to switch back. Here's what you can do to fix that:

Transform again using your desired method. Might be tedious for some.

Take a pill or serum that will stabilize the transformation. Kind of like the Lucid Pill that's used to stabilize the dream.

Believe that nothing went wrong
Those who know me by now know I'm really big on the willpower thing. It's your dream, you're in control. End of story. Now have that mentality with your transformations! If something has changed in your appearance or gone wrong, simply believe that everything is alright. Roll with it and your appearance will correct itself.

Still more stuff to add. Will write more later.

I still havenâ€™t mastered this after 10 years. I am a fan of furries and transformations, though!

In more recent times, I've made leaps and strides with the overall quality/completeness of my transformations. Up until a couple of months ago, I used to summon DC characters. One of the problems I had with this was that the DCs would naturally have a mind of their own and in most cases would be un-cooperative. This robbed me of many transformations.

On the LDhere from 27th August, I had the idea of summoning a "transformation collar". I came up with this as I wanted to avoid the need to summon DCs which would make the LD:

1) Avoid adding extra "overhead" to the LD
2) Avoid the transformation being driven by an external source that had a mind of its own.

The transformation in that one had a level of physical/visual realism that far exceeded my expectations. I've used the collars since and I've found that many of my transformations have come far closer to completion than when I was reliant on DCs.

I'll try them next time I've a LD.
I'm quite a newby about LD and, well, to tell the truth I've only morphed once. I changed myself into rain. That was very strange, and I don't really know how to explain how I felt. It was like I was flowing. At the same time, the point of view of the dream changed between the "rain point of view" (like, what is in front of the the raining cloud) and an extern point view, showing the cloud. Anyway, it didn't last a long time, soon I stopped being lucid and the dream changed.